Heroes Not Zombies

Here’s something which I reckon is part of the daily experience of the vast majority of us…….the weather changes all the time. This weekend, it’s mid Spring in the Northern Hemisphere, but I read on both the UK and French weather forecasts that it will be more like Autumn than Spring today. There’s obviously one of those big weather systems active over Western Europe and its bringing lower temperatures, rain and wind. But yesterday afternoon we sat outside in the garden, in the sun, and chatted with one of our neighbours, and, earlier, we hung out a washing on the line and it dried in no time.

I know that we can hit a run of days where the weather seems much the same, but, mostly, it changes every day, and it changes all day long.

This photo I’m sharing today shows rain falling on the next village across the other side of the vineyards. Sometimes it’s like that. We can see the rain coming, or passing us by. We can see the storm gathering, or the sky clearing. We can see the sun’s rays making their way across the Earth towards us.

My point is……change is an inherent characteristic of reality. We live in a dynamic, lively, changing, evolving universe. Our lives don’t stand still (even when it feels like that). The communities of cells which constitute a human body are alive, growing, dying, developing or being replaced, minute by minute. The human mind doesn’t stand still. Our neurones fire constantly. Even when we are asleep.

How are we going to respond to that?

Get angry, frustrated and upset that reality won’t bend to our Will?

Many spiritual teachers have taught that there lies the root of human suffering.

But it often doesn’t feel good to be constantly reacting to circumstances and bending to the Will of others does it?

Is there an alternative?

I think there is. It’s in adapting. It’s in flexibility combined with integrity. It’s in making the time and space to allow response rather than reaction. It’s in knowing that we have freedom. Freedom to choose, what Victor Frankl, said was the ability to decide how we wanted to respond in any given situation (I strongly recommend his “Man’s Search for Meaning”)